Pretty Princess Dress

Recently I got the idea to make a princess dress for Ariana. I wanted it to be a tutu dress, but didn't want to use the crochet top that so many others have (something about them is too revealing for me). So I set off to the store to buy my supplies and after a few hours worth of work, here it is.

Can you tell who it is? Yep, Snow White!

It's not perfect, but a great start. I actually bought material to make a Belle one as well, but it will have to wait (for now). After that I want to do Rapunzel.

To make the top I bought some elastic thread. All I can say is LOVE. After this project I'm addicted.

 

I'll be back again once I get the others done, but for now I'm entering this project into a crafting challenge.

 

 

Parrot costume how-to

So I mentioned in this post that I was going to come back in a few minutes to post my how-to for making A's parrot costume. Well, that few minutes turned into a few hours due to little Miss waking up an hour early from her nap. Thankfully she went down again for a rare afternoon nap, so I'm here to follow through with my commitment.

Here's the finished item (on a model since little Miss was sleeping when these were taken)...

Like I mentioned before, my basic supplies were a "track suit," felt, and google eyes. That's all!

Although the pictures don't do it justice, the pink felt is actually the same color as the suit. Since the suit is velor, it seems to glow in my pictures, so be prepared to shield you eyes, ha ha.

I first cut out the wings of the outfit, but I don't have any pictures of that process so I'm going to move on to the tail (very similar to the wings though). First I laid the jacket down with the back towards me. I then took a piece of poster board and laid it across the bottom and drew the tail shape (a triangle).  I made the edges sharp just like a bird's tail would look, at least in my opinion, then I cut it out.

I also drew a few more tail shapes on it to represent the shapes for the other colors.

Then I cut out my first layer.

Once my purple was cut, I moved on to the next color. Remember the lines I drew? This is where they come in handy. I just cut down to the next line I drew and traced that shape onto the blue felt. Like this.

Now this is what my two cut out pieces look like when stacked together.

I then repeated the previous step of cutting down to the next line and tracing it onto the next color I was using. And did it again one final time. Here they are stacked.

Once I got here, all I did was glue them together with a glue stick. Although I would not recommend that, it didn't stick very well. But since I knew this outfit would only be worn once or twice, I wasn't too worried about it's durability.

So, to back up and give some instructions for the wings. I did the same steps as you saw for the tail except to get my template I laid the jacket on top of the poster board and traced along the side/arm of the jacket, then joined those lines with a jagged edge (it will almost look opposite of the tail). Everything else is exactly the same. Just do one layer at a time and stack them as you go. Oh, and don't forget you must cut out two of each layer for the wings, since you have to do one for each arm.

Oh I hope I haven't lost you yet...

This is what the three pieces should look like when put together.

The next two steps are the easiest. Take a piece of yellow felt and cut off one of the corners to make the beak. I didn't measure before I cut, I just knew the general size I wanted it to be. Also, cut out two ovals for the eyes. I made mine about 3.5x4 inches. Again, I didn't measure before I cut, I just went with what I thought looked right.

So now this is what you should have: two assembled wings, one assembled tail, two eyes, and one beak, along with the google eyes.

Now comes the fun part of putting it all together. I added everything to the jacket with a blind stitch so it wouldn't be visible, and also so I can easily remove everything for A to wear the plain outfit another time.

I started with the wings. I began my stitches in the armpit area and worked my way toward either the wrist hole or the bottom of the jacket. I did each side of the wing separate (armpit to end) so I could make sure that it was positioned correctly as I went. Of course I repeated this step twice (two wings). You can see the starting knots I tied in the armpit as I started each side from there. Also, a reminder to make sure your detail cuts are to the back of the jacket!

Then it was time to move on to the tail. I just centered it on the bottom seam of the jacket and stitched it there. This is how it should look now.

To add the beak, I just centered it on the front of the hood and again did a blind stitch all the way across.

For the eyes, I figured out where I wanted them on the hood and did a quick center stitch to keep them in place as I top stitched around them.

Are you getting excited? It's almost complete! All that's left is to add the google eye to the eye you sewed on. I chose to put mine more toward front of the hood.

And again here's the finished costume.

If you have any questions, or if you need any more explanation of any of the steps, please feel free to ask in the comments.

Weekend happenings

This weekend was just like any other, nothing out of the ordinary. Except... it was our friend R's baby shower!! Jamie and I were so excited to be able to drive up to see R and celebrate the arrivial of baby E. I (of course) put my crafting skills to use and spent a few days making some special items for the little man (more on that later in this post).

This was supposed to be Jamie's first weekend back to work since he went to training. He's been on weekday shifts for almost a month, and I think we both came to the conclusion that we did not like it. But instead, he took Saturday off so we could drive up to spend the day with R. I was nervous about how A would do being out of the house for the whole day, so we tried to time our trip around her naps. But of course, she decided to wake up an hour early so we had to change our plans. In spite of the early wake up, we were on the road exactly on time (which is rare for us).

Half way there we decided to stop off and fill up the gas tank. I took this time to also feed A so she could last the rest of our trip. Soon after we were ready to get back on the road, but our car had other plans. The battery decided to give us trouble, which ultimately needed to be replaced before we left to head home. After our 20 minute delay we were on the road again. We arrived about a half hour late, but poor Jamie had to rush off to the store to get the new battery (while the car was still running).

We spent the afternoon hanging out and catching up with R and then it came time for the gifts. Holy cow!! I don't think I've ever seen so many gifts for just one little man. She got everything possible for him to last right up through the first year, no kidding. Unfortunately, we had to leave earlier than we wanted because we had plans back home. So we said our goodbyes and grabbed some cake for the road (mmmm strawberry filled).

Once home we ate dinner, crock-pot chicken and mushrooms which had been cooking all day while we were out of the house, then it was time to rest. We all cuddled up on the couch and watched some TV. Then it was off to bed for all of us.

Today, though, was just any other Sunday. It was just A and I here so we hung out and spent the day together. I hate that it's too hot outside to do anything with her. Even going to the pool isn't possible, mainly because there's no shade available, but that a rant for another time.

Now on to the fun stuff... my super cute quilt I made for baby E!!

First I had to figure out which fabric to use. I've had this laying around waiting to make something with it, and I though this quilt would be perfect!

Then I had to cut out 48, 4.5" squares of fabric.

 

After arranging the squares so I knew where I wanted them, I pinned them together in strips.

 

And began sewing. 

This is what it looked like once all rows were sewn together. 

Then I cut out my back piece. I knew I wanted to keep this whole so I wouldn't interrupt the pattern. 

This is the front all sewn together. 

At this time, I began to cut small slits in the seams to create the frayed edge. 

And that's it. All done! 

Only thing left to do is wrap it up and tie a bow :)